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Sunday, October 27, 2013

As The Steam/GOG Turns #13: The "Wow it's been much too long" Lucky Number 13 Edition

Welcome back to As The Steam/GOG Turns, the continuing story of two competing digital distribution services that compete for everyone's attention.

I'm baaaaa-aaaack! Didya miss me?! Yeah, I just lost all track of time, and I got swamped with well over a month's worth of releases. So, this edition will essentially be me playing a gigantic amount of catchup, and I'll be returning to my normal posting of this column come Friday, November 1st.

Also I won't feature any Early Access, DLC, updates, or Pre-Order / Pre-Purchase releases, only full releases will be featured this time around. So, let's get this party started, shall we?!

First off, we have some GOG releases. I wish to feature games that I may or may not have featured prior.

So, with that in mind, I will start off by discussing the new Shadow Warrior game. I know, I know, remakes aren't good, remakes never come to the level of the original, blah blah blah, but I think it looks like an interesting game. Next is Re-Volt, a delightful little late-90s racing game where you race radio controlled cars. Sort of like RC Pro-Am for the NES, but more interesting and with better graphics.

Next up is PixelJunk Monsters HD. Most of you who don't follow console releases don't know what PixelJunk Monsters is, but it's basically a cartoonish tower defense game that has been on Sony's platforms for forever and ever amen, but is FINALLY on the PC. Next up is the full trilogy of The Legend of Kyrandia. These are some of the most legendary point-&-click adventure games NOT made by the hands of LucasArts, and the games are now finally, finally available for wider release once again. Great job on this one, GOG.

Next is a really, really, really wacky one: Long Live the Queen! It is essentially a political thriller disguised by cute anime visuals and for $10, there isn't much where you can go wrong to at least give it a try. Along those same lines but in the complete polar opposite direction is Democracy 3, with sliders galore (but no FOV slider, haha) and containing more bubbles than Lawrence Welk's legendary long-running variety show. However, this gameis ridiculously overpriced at a mere $24.99. However, for a hardcore political simulation, it is at least adequate. I personally will wait till that one's on sale before I bite.

The final release I am featuring is Corsairs Gold. Shiver me timbers, matey, and dominate the Seven Seas by any means necessary in a legendary real time strategy game series featuring (what else?) pirates. This one looks absurdly fun, so that's going on my wishlist for later. Its $6 price tag means I'll probably snap that one up sooner rather than later.

Now before I get to the Steam releases, I want to very specifically highlight some of GOG's "Customer Love" in the adding of content to pre-existing releases with recent additions to the Bullfrog catalog, with the addition (FINALLY) of the American Revolt, Deeper Dungeons, Hidden Worlds, Promised Lands, and Undiscovered Worlds expansions for Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet, Populous, and Populous: The Beginning, respectively.

Now on to the Steam releases. Of which, there really ain't much to look at here. There's Pac-Man Championshiop Edition DX+, and the full release of the Steam edition of King of Fighters XIII, and Batman Arkham Origins, and some weird release called Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils which looks eerily like a shmup that I absolutely freaking HAVE to try, especially since it sort of reminds me of the Touhou series of bullet hell shmups I've only marginally heard of through friends. But other than a few things (and Steam Controllers that look promising, and Steam Machines, and SteamOS, which if embraced by the major AAA publishers will be a huge deal for PC gaming, but I have exactly zero confidence that's going to happen), that is actually it. So, my mini not-by-choice backlog is cleared out finally and I will hopefully see you Friday.

So, that does it for this week. And until next time, the Steam/GOG conflict ever turns...